


Kaiba Has a Press Conference

by WinchesterWarrenSon



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Genre: Autistic Kaiba Seto, Gen, R-Word Usage, autistic headcanon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-07
Updated: 2015-04-07
Packaged: 2018-03-21 16:07:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3698513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WinchesterWarrenSon/pseuds/WinchesterWarrenSon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Joey says something he shouldn't have out of ignorance on the day Seto Kaiba makes an important announcement about KaibaCorp's stance on ableism and eugenics and human rights violations of developmentally and intellectually disabled individuals.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kaiba Has a Press Conference

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PickleandtheQueen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PickleandtheQueen/gifts).



> Wish fulfillment-y fic. Wanted to write it after deciding that Kaiba makes a pretty good character to headcanon as autistic. Kind of considered Yugi, but ultimately I decided Yugi fits into social circles too well. Despite passing for NT, I still don't have a lot of friends and get left behind and ostracized surprisingly easily and quickly when the tide turns, and Yugi and Co. would never treat each other like that, but Kaiba has a lot of experience with that and also doesn't really have anyone other than Mokuba. So I headcanon that Kaiba's disinterest in making friends is because he finds it very difficult to make friends in the first place and understands business partner relationships more easily because they are quantifiable and you can essentially use math and economics to figure out if a relationship is gonna work or not. Friendship isn't like that, and he has a hard time understanding why someone not related to him by blood like Mokuba would bother putting in the effort for a friendship.

The mood in the living room quickly changed as Joey, Yugi, Tea, and Tristan entered the living room from the entry door connecting the house to the game shop.

"Welcome back, children. Why the long faces?" Grandpa Motou asked.

"Kaiba beat Joey at another duel. In front of a bunch of special needs kids." said Tristan.

"With an extra heaping of humiliation," Tea added.

Joey groaned and collapsed onto the couch. "Kaiba was pissed, too. Like, really pissed. Like, I've never even seen him that mad before pissed. But you'd think he'd just throw me out, right? Nope. Public humiliation."

"Well...." Yugi started out saying, but hesitated.

"What was Kaiba angry about?" Grandpa Motou asked.

"I don't even know!"

"Joey...."

"Hm? What is it, Yug?"

"You used the R-word in front of Kaiba and those kids. That's what he was angry about...."

"Huh? R-word? What R-word?"

Yugi got rather quiet, whispering, "Retarded."

"Yeah? What about it?"

"Joey, it's a slur word. For developmentally disabled people. A.k.a. special needs?"

Recognition took a while, but then Joey's eyes widened and he covered his mouth with his hand.

"You serious, Yug? Man, I had no idea it was a bad thing today, everybody says it back in my neighborhood."

"And at school...." Tristan added. Tristan's face showed that he also hadn't known that either.

"Well, no wonder Kaiba was upset then. You insulted his guests to their face." Tea said.

"Shit. Well, now I don't feel so bad about losin'. I mean . . . if he was defending those kids, then I'm glad he cares and isn't, like, being his usual robot self."

"He's not a robot, robots can't get angry."

"I dunno, you were a robot monkey once."

"That was in a virtual reality!"

Yugi sighed and went over to the TV remote and turned the TV on to see what was on. Speaking of Kaiba, the news station was broadcasting a press conference Kaiba was hosting today. He wasn't dressed as he usually did or even how he was dressed earlier when he had dueled Joey. Instead of his white coat with his KaibaCorp logo on the collar, he was wearing a business suit with a blue-and-white tie. He didn't look angry anymore, but he almost looked tired. His bright blue eyes were as striking as ever, and Yugi furrowed his eyebrows as he tried to place what looked so different about him. Clothes shouldn't have that much of an effect on how he perceived Kaiba. And it wasn't like he was suddenly dressed in any way that wouldn't indicate wealth, power, and prestige. So why did he look like he was . . . dare he think it, vulnerable?

"You're no doubt wondering why I called this press conference together. Let me get right to the point. We don't have too much time and it's easier that way. As some of you might be aware, I have recently started being increasingly more active in what my company offers the community in terms of educational and fun programs for children, specifically with disabilities and/or special needs. If you're not aware, I'm not surprised. It's one of the few things I've been doing that hasn't gotten into the newspapers. So many of your media outlets are far too interested in my love life or criticizing my business strategies and industry choices. It's not entirely the media outlets' fault. They provide what they think you'll consume. And not many of you are interested in what I'm doing to better the lives of disabled children. Many of you don't care at all about the disabled.

"I do have a point. This isn't a derailment. These programs and increased effort to help enrich the lives of these children don't come from a need of a charity quota in my checkbook. For far too long, the actual needs of special needs children and adults have been ignored in favor of soothing and massaging the egos and sensibilities of the able-bodied and able-minded. The egos of selfish parents and resentful caregivers and lazy doctors. I aim to fix that. These KaibaLand programs and events are just the beginning. We at KaibaCorp are going to revolutionize the way we think about developmentally and intellectually disabled children and the way they learn and see the world. We will prove to them that they aren't just the diagnoses on their medical records or the perceived failings their families hoist onto them or the grades on their report card. And I will not stop until the idea of institutionalizing children and adults for so-called treatment that is categorized as torture by the UN is abhorrent to every person I meet and encounter. And I will make sure you understand and recognize it when you see and hear it. Because it hides. These children and adults are being tortured and killed for being different and not thinking in the way you do, and you are blind to it, even when it is right in front of your face. Forced sterilization, applied behavioral analysis, conversion therapy, quiet hands, and prenatal DNA testing are all tactics to eradicate those who have different brain wiring from you, it is against our - "

There was a very sudden pause in Kaiba's speech, and everyone in Yugi's living room waited for the rest with baited breath.

"- their human rights. They have a right to exist and be themselves and be encouraged to be proud of who they are and to learn how to best navigate the world without unnecessary stress. To be rid of them is to be practicing eugenics, and KaibaCorp will not condone or stand for it. The special needs programs at KaibaLand may have been the start, but it is not the end. Starting from this moment, KaibaCorp is providing money to those who cannot fund what they need in order to properly take care of their disabled child. It is a grant program. You can apply for the grant using an application on the KaibaCorp website. You can find it by going to the KaibaCorp Grants tab. We'll do our very best to help you in a world that doesn't want you here. We're in our beginning stages with this program, so we may need to adjust things as we go along. But know that we will listen to what you need from us and what you need us to do. We're here to help."

Kaiba took a deep breath. "Mokuba will answer any questions you have."

Kaiba left the podium and was replaced by Mokuba, who handled answering the questions very well. You know, for a kid who was the vice president of a gaming corporation.

None of those in the Motou home let on that they had noticed that Kaiba had said "our human rights" at first. Whether or not they thought it was a misspoken word or a slip-up was unknown.

Seto Kaiba, on the other hand, allowed himself to shake from his nerves now that the cameras were gone, and he gritted his teeth tightly and balled his hands into fists, fighting the urge to pinch or hit or scratch himself to try to relieve some of the stress. He also resisted the urge to flap his hands to try to calm down. It was just what he did.

He hadn't let himself stim since they got adopted by Gozoboro Kaiba and had been taken on a tour of an institution when Gozoboro had noticed that Seto was . . . well, the words Gozoboro had used were "acting like a retard." Gozoboro had showed him what happened to boys who made weird noises and flapped their hands and smacked themselves and rubbed their faces in random fabrics in public.

Seto had the ability to pass for neurotypical, and Gozoboro saw that and made sure that Seto always behaved like that. He showed him kids with electroshock devices attached to them and what happened when they misbehaved.... Sometimes in his nightmares Seto could still hear the screaming. And Gozoboro made sure Seto understood that he'd never see Mokuba again if he went to one of those places....

So Seto played the role and ignored how much his head hurt. He grew to be much more angry and resentful and unreasonable.

Now he took too much Advil and couldn't bring himself to accept that part of himself, even though seeing those kids with his same issues made him feel like he wasn't the only one. Even though he wanted them to love themselves and see that they could be anything they wanted to be.

Losing Mokuba would always be his greatest fear, but the fear of having the R-word thrown at him again, like he was broken because of it, the fear of being seen as less-than-human as the world thought of people like him as . . . it held him back from being an actual example for those kids.

He wanted them to have the success of KaibaCorp. But he didn't want them to be like him. He wanted them to be happy freely. Not solely in private with just themselves to see it.


End file.
